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WHAT TO DO NOW: Happily, the year is off to a generally good start, but the situation remains tricky, with the market’s intermediate-term trends neutral-to-negative and with the early January effect (tons of volatility among individual stocks) being seen in many names. Today’s bulletin is regarding Axon Enterprises (AXON), which has been a solid winner for us but has been losing ground for a few weeks and today is cracking support on big volume. We’ll sell our remaining shares, taking the rest of our profit off the table. Details below.

Today, a whopping eight Profit Booster positions will expire. Most are “slam-dunk,” full-profit trades, while others will go down to the wire.

The big takeaway, before we dive in, is we are going to let the situation play itself out, and come Monday/Tuesday of next week we will revisit our profits, as well as how we will manage the remaining positions.

WHAT TO DO NOW: The market is nosing generally higher of late, however, the action remains very hit or miss among individual stocks, with some emerging and others getting hit. Today’s bulletin regards Shift4 (FOUR), which is cracking today after a mundane Q4 report and a big announced acquisition—we took partial profits a couple of months ago and are going to take the rest of our gain off the table today.

WHAT TO DO NOW: The growth stock meltdown continues, with the major indexes and individual names under heavy pressure again today. Already with nearly 80% in cash, we’re not eager to sell wholesale in the Model Portfolio, but we also won’t just hold and hope. Today, we’re going to sell half our position in Flutter (FLUT), which has fallen sharply this week. We’ll hold the rest of our names as well as our 84% cash hoard.

WHAT TO DO NOW: Remain defensive as the ferocious selling in growth stocks continues. Today’s bulletin concerns Duolingo (DUOL), which reported a fine quarter and better-than-expected outlook—but the stock is cracking nevertheless. We’ll cut bait here, leaving us with around 72% in cash.

WHAT TO DO NOW: The market remains resilient, but range bound, so we continue to go slow, with lots of hit-or-miss action out there. Happily, most of the Model Portfolio stocks are acting normally, though ahead of tonight’s update we’re going to make one small change—we’re going to sell one-third of what we have left in AppLovin (APP), which is up big again today after earnings, though it’s fading during the day. We’ll take some more profits off the table and hold the rest.

Artivion (AORT), our MedTech company that specializes in cardiovascular and aortic repair solutions, reported Q4 FY25 results after the close yesterday. Results came in a hair below expectations. Revenue grew by 11.7% to $129.5 million (missed by $48K) while adjusted EPS improved to $0.17 (missed by a penny) from breakeven in the year-ago quarter.

Special Bulletin: Update on Gold/Silver Sell-Off

WHAT TO DO NOW: The market continues to act fairly well, though most of our timing indicators haven’t really kicked into gear. We’re OK extending our line, but we’re also going slow and honoring stops on what we own as there are still lots of crosscurrents out there. Today’s bulletin is about Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY), which we’re selling today after it’s come under pressure this week following no addition to the S&P 500. We’ll hold the cash for now (near 60%) but could redeploy later this week.

“Over the past two years, Janus Flexible Bond (JAFIX for ‘T’ shares) was the 10th best performer of every fund we track in our Performance Comparison tables. Its annualized gain over this period was 10.2%, vs. 6.8% for iShares Barclays Aggregate (AGG), an indexed exchange traded fund for the intermediate-term,...

China considers the gap between the rich and the poor.

When investors perceive risk to be greatest (when the economic news is horrible) is when risk is actually lowest.

There were no earnings reports or ratings changes this week. Due to the holidays, we will not be publishing a Friday note or podcast next week. The Cabot Turnaround Letter will be published next Wednesday, and our Friday note and podcast will resume on January 5, 2024.

Small-cap cloud software stocks have been on a roll lately, and these three are showing strong momentum heading into 2024.